


The Hours Between

by Verilidaine



Series: Ghosts [3]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gamora/Peter Quill - Freeform, Gen, Hints at other past and non-realized relationships, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 19:12:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19409620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verilidaine/pseuds/Verilidaine
Summary: There are some realities that Peter and Rocket need to face, but at least now it's something they can do together.aka, Peter and Rocket talk after Endgame.





	The Hours Between

**Author's Note:**

> Just a conversation that got stuck in my head after Endgame. Finally polished it up, takes place in the HoS universe (which is not important to being able to read this).

Peter dry-washed his face and ducked to get into the cockpit of their ship. Rocket’s ship? He wasn’t sure. Walking around the storage holds and living areas, it was clear that this was Rocket’s space.   
  
He straightened and stared out the viewport. They were in orbit around Earth, ostensibly to give Rocket time to check the ship over after the battle, but privately he knew it was actually to give everyone some time to adjust to the situation away from all the Earth strangers. They would be attending a funeral in a few days for a man he’d barely known, but that they owed their lives to.  
  
He’d been looking out the viewport for probably a few minutes when he heard the quiet sniffle. He frowned and took a few steps forward, looking around into the primary pilot’s seat. There, knees pulled up to his chest, completely unaware of him, was Rocket.   
  
“Rocket?”  
  
Rocket twitched and looked up. He was crying, damp trails visible down the fur on his face. “Oh, hey Quill,” he said, and rubbed at his eyes.  
  
Peter hesitated. “Um ... hey,” he said. “Uh. D’you ... I can go, sorry.”  
  
Rocket frowned, ears pulling to the side in confusion. “Why?”  
  
“You’re uh, you’re...” Peter gestured at him and cleared his throat. “I’ll go. Sorry.”   
  
Rocket’s ears perked and his eyes widened. “Oh!” he said. “Right, yeah, the crying thing. Nah, sit down.”   
  
Peter did so, slowly, watching Rocket closely and waiting for ... something. Anything other than an invitation to sit down. Rocket was crying. That was _weird._ “I didn’t mean to bother you.”  
  
Rocket barked a laugh. “Quill, half the universe vanished. You stop caring about someone walking in on you crying. If you _don’t_ walk in on your friends crying, it means you ain’t seeing them enough.”  
  
Peter’s stomach twisted. That was something he was still having trouble imagining. Rocket, and apparently Nebula even though Peter couldn’t see any trace of her in the ship, alone together in the universe for five years. Rocket having _Earth_ friends and family now. All of them living with a horrifying reality. He could easily imagine the kind of bonds that would create.   
  
“You ... wanna talk about it?” And that was the least Peter could offer, after getting to essentially sleep through the entire thing.   
  
Rocket sighed. “No. Ain’t what I’m crying about, anyway.”  
  
“What are you crying about?”  
  
Rocket turned his head slightly and his ears twitched in Peter’s direction. “Gamora, kind of.” His voice hitched and he lifted his arms up to hug himself, looking down. “And Groot,” he whispered.   
  
“We’ll find her,” Peter said, the only thing he could, because it was the only thing he could keep telling himself while he tried not to think about the full reality of it.   
  
Another short laugh, this one harsher than the last. “Yeah but that ain’t Gamora,” Rocket said. “Not _our_ Gamora.”  
  
“She’s...” Peter said, but there was no argument to that. The exact thing he was trying hard not to think about, and Rocket had just spit it out like it didn’t mean anything. He wanted to be angry, but how could he blame Rocket for that truth, or resent him for his ability to face it?  
  
Maybe if he’d escaped the first Snap, he’d be able to face it too.  
  
“This whole time,” Rocket said, pulling Peter from his thoughts, “You were all ... dead, but not-dead, y’know?” He brushed more tears off his cheeks, only getting the surrounding fur damper. “Even when there wasn’t any hope. There was dead-dead, like Groot and Yondu, and then everyone else. I think that’s the only thing that kept me going. But now she’s dead-dead.”   
  
Peter swallowed. There was a lump in his throat and he knew if he spoke, he’d start crying, and he just wasn’t quite at the level of acceptance that Rocket was about that.  
  
“And,” Rocket continued, his voice now very small, “Groot don’t know.” He buried his face in his arms. “I gotta tell him, an’ I ... How’m I s’posed to tell him his mom is dead?”  
  
Something cold and heavy settled into Peter’s chest. “Oh, god,” he whispered, and felt the first tears drop. There was no way for Groot to have known what happened to Gamora. He’d been on Earth, then he’d been dusted, and then returned to the battle. “Did he see her?”  
  
“Yeah. He asked me why she didn’t come with us.”  
  
“When?”  
  
“‘Bout an hour ago. I told him I had to make a call.”  
  
“And you came up here,” Peter said. He let his head thud back. “ _Fuck_.”  
  
“Yeah.” He heard Rocket shift. “I need to tell before he finds out from someone else.”  
  
“We’ll tell him together,” Peter said immediately. “Okay? You don’t have to do this alone.”  
  
Rocket looked at him and his eyes were wide and bright. He nodded.   
  
Peter reached his hand out and Rocket reached back, and Peter closed his fingers around the small paw. They sat in silence, just looking out together.   
  
“So...” Peter said after a while. “I’ve been meaning to ask, and if this is the wrong time, just bite me, but I figure..."  
  
“Just ask, Quill."  
  
“Right. This Tony guy.”  
  
Rocket turned a half-powered glare on him. “What about him?”  
  
“I dunno, just...” Peter shrugged. “You seemed really upset. You worked with him a lot?”  
  
Rocket’s frown deepened for a moment, then his eyes widened and he laughed. “Oh! Yeah. But it wasn’t like that. I mean--not that I would have minded, or that I didn’t think about it, just...” He shrugged. “He had a wife and kid. He really loved his family, never shut up about ‘em. Plus, I don’t know if he could have dealt with the ‘raccoon’ thing.”  
  
Peter nodded. “Yeah. I just, I want you to know, you can tell me about anything, right? Anything that happened while we were gone that you think we won’t understand. We’re here for you.”  
  
“I know,” Rocket said. “Thanks, Pete.” His fingers twitched. “We’ll be okay, won’t we? Without her?” And he sounded scared.  
  
“We’ll be okay,” Peter said. He wasn’t ready to face any other possibilities. “And we’ll find the other Gamora, and we’ll help her. If anyone knows how to help her, it’s us.”  
  
“Yeah.” Rocket squeezed his hand. “Are _you_ okay?”  
  
Peter blew out a breath. “I’m not ready to figure that out.” And damn it, just that question had made him start crying. He quickly wiped at his eyes.   
  
“‘S’okay, Pete,” Rocket murmured, and just those three words were enough to make Peter lose the small amount of control he had left. It felt so strange to be crying like this--weeping, really--in front of someone else, but Rocket wasn’t bothered, and somehow...  
  
Somehow, that helped.   
  
When the sobs settled and Peter’s breathing was mostly even again, he cleared his throat and tilted his head back. A few blinks cleared his eyes before he looked over at Rocket, who was watching him. He’d been crying too, quietly.  
  
“Right,” Peter said, and squeezed Rocket’s hand once more before letting go. “Let’s go tell Groot.”


End file.
